


Thoughts Of Home

by seraphium



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-22 20:57:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10704951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphium/pseuds/seraphium
Summary: "It was the end of August when the twins decided that they’d had enough."Vex'ahlia and Vax'ildan leaving the place that they live with their father, and going back towards home, what they find there, and the beginnings of what comes next.





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1  
It was the end of August when the twins decided that they’d had enough. The air in the city had lost the stifling humidity that had plagued them both in the summer, but luckily it wasn’t cold or rainy enough yet that travelling would be to inconvenient, at least not for the distance they planned to go.   
The barely audible click as the latch on Vex’ahlia’s door was opened, followed momentarily by the sound of it closing was the only indication that her brother had entered the room, and that would have been missed by anyone that wasn’t as perceptive as she was.  
Vax’ildan was wearing warm, dark clothes, and had a rucksack slung over one shoulder. He stepped quietly across the thick carpeted floor, as she was pushing back the thin summer quilt and slipped of the bed, standing to face him.  
“You got everything ready to go stubby?” He whispered  
“Money, clothes, and everything else I put on the list” She replied, at a similar volume “You good to leave?”  
“God yeah. I don’t think I want anything more.”  
“Then let’s get out of here”  
Vex had gotten into bed with the clothes she was going to leave in, and had kept her bag packed and out of sight inside the closet, so after picking it up and putting it on, there was nothing left to do but open the latch, slide up the window, and slip through onto the sill.  
Looking down from the third floor window, Vex could see the carefully maintained lawn, and past it the ostentatious fence that separated the place her father lived from the street. The glow of the street lights was still as comforting as it had been when the pair had first been moved here (taken, she still corrected) especially in comparison to the eerie magical light that lit the inside of the house.   
Even though she’d been doing it for months now, the climb down from the third floor window still took the better part of 2 minutes (despite the brickwork offering many handholds, there was a sizable distance between the windows, and a loud fall at this point could fuck things up spectacularly). This climb felt different from the others though. And it wasn’t just that the weight of her bag made it feel that way. Vex knew that if all went to plan, she would never set foot inside the building again, or even have to look at the walls surrounding the embassy. She dropped down the last couple of metres, remembering to roll her feet as she landed, making sure that she made as little noise as possible. She knew that her brother would be moments behind her, but she peeked up to check anyway, pretending that it was cold enough for her hands to be shaking, and not for any other reason. He glanced at her as he landed, the anxiety in his face even clearer than it was on her own (he never had been as good his sister at hiding his emotions), she turned around, away from the house, and started walking, not quite in a crouch, crossing the grass, and stepping in between the well-kept shrubs and trees that bordered the lawn. This final wall took far less effort to climb, despite the ornamental spikes that lined its top, and once she was over it she stood, glancing up and down the street, looking for the guards, or embassy staff that would surely be upon them at any moment.  
Her arms were down at her sides, hands clenched tight, nail digging into her palm until another hand gently pried it open, her brother, holding it tight for one second, then another, before he let it go.   
Together, they turned and faced the house and they had stayed in for the past 7 years, before they turned away from it, and towards home.

 

While toward home was the general heading, their destination for the night was more specifically a slightly shady motel that Vex had looked up from a computer in a not quite local library.   
The journey would only take an hour on foot, but it was already pushing midnight, and the rest of the day after they had decided that they would leave had felt long and tense, but it wasn’t as if there was a huge number of options open to them. Neither of them spoke, both twins were more than occupied watching the streets around them, at first to see if anyone from the embassy was coming after them, and as they approached the motel, for anyone looking to take advantage of a pair of teens out late at night. 

When they finally reached it, they were exhausted, but even as tired as she was, Vex put on a winning smile and tried to haggle down the price of the room, and was pleasantly surprised when it worked, although she thought it was probably more that the receptionist that she was bothering looked as tired as she was, and seemed to just want them inside.   
It was close to one in the morning and when they stumbled into their room and stepped inside. After groping along the wall for a few moments, Vax flicked the light on, and the pair looked at their accommodation. It was a stark contrast to her room at the embassy, with two single beds wedged either side of a nightstand, all facing a bench supporting a TV that couldn’t have been built in the past twenty years. Vax turned to look at his sister, weariness clear on his face.  
“Well. We made it this far. This was the hard part of the journey, right sis?” He said.  
“Definitely. We’re practically there already. I can almost hear mother saying how much she missed me while lamenting that you came back at all.”  
Vax’s mock gasp while normally quite impressive in its drama, was far less so when it was cut off halfway through by a yawn.   
“Oh god let’s just sleep. We probably shouldn’t stay in too late tomorrow. The sooner we get away from here the better”  
“Brilliant idea. Goodnight stubby”  
“Goodnight, dick”  
The pair didn’t bother to change, and they didn’t unpack their bags, and after Vax had dragged a chair to the door and, ignoring Vex’s snicker, propped it up under the handle, they turned out the light, and climbed into bed.  
As lumpy as the mattress was, and as thin as the quilt was, Vex still felt more comfortable than she’d ever been in the embassy. Not that she was without anxiety. She still felt that it couldn’t be this easy, that surely it would all come crashing down and they’d be dragged back in front of Syldor, or maybe straight to some jail, either here, or back in Syngorn. Part of her was almost worried that he wouldn’t care at all, that he’d be informed that they weren’t in their rooms and simply go back to working, without pause. But Vex’ahlia had long since decided that that part of her, the one that wanted to appease and mollify their father, shouldn’t be listened to. If today had proven anything, it was that it had never had any effect on his feelings for them.  
“Vex, you still awake?”   
A quiet voice from the other bed stirred her from her thoughts. On many other similar occasions, her response would have been to say something sarcastic, bury her head further into the pillows and keep trying to sleep, maybe throw something at her brother, if there was anything on hand, but there was something in his voice, and plenty on her mind, that made her pause before responding.  
“Yeah. What is it?” She said, turning away from the window to face him.  
“What happened today?” The room was dark, but her eyesight was still good enough to pick out the crease of worry in his forehead.  
“Oh. That. It was nothing new. It’s completely fine.”  
“Sister dear, we’re lying in a shitty motel, after climbing out the window past midnight. We left because when I got in, you were crying in your room. Clearly it’s not completely fine. Tell me about it?”  
“I needed to get something from downstairs, while you were out. I heard him talking outside his office. I don’t know who it was too, I think maybe one of the men from Syngorn that arrived yesterday for the fancy dinner he’s having.” Vex said “Anyway, I didn’t hear the start of the conversation, but he was saying something to them about when he was going to go back permanently, instead of just traveling back and forth. Father said he’ll move back once he’s figured out what to do with us, because obviously we couldn’t be around his real child. And whoever the dick was, he said ‘Why don’t you just leave them here? This is around the time that humans leave their own children to fend for themselves isn’t it, and you’ve already done a lot more for them then most would.’ And father said ‘Not that they’ve ever been grateful for it. You might be right though, what could they really learn in another year here? It’s not like anything I’ve tried to teach them has sunk in while they’ve been here, despite my best efforts.’  
‘I doubt that’s your fault, you can’t expect them to able to function like we did back then, they’re almost human.’ Then father laughed, and I went back upstairs. It wasn’t even worse than anything else that he’s said before, but god I hate him so fucking much.”  
“Yeah, I get it. Fuck both of them. We’ll be okay once we get back to Byroden.”   
There was a slight pause, before Vax spoke again.   
“God it’s been so long since we left. What do you think it’s like now?”  
“I don’t know. I can’t really imagine it having changed much. Do you think that old man is still living house next door?”  
“God Vex, do you seriously not remember Henderson's name? We were neighbors with him for 10 years. He even baby sat us a few times.”  
“Oh don’t act like you know any better, is Henderson his first or last name?”  
There conversation continued in this vein later then either thought was entirely sensible, despite their exhaustion (neither wanted to be alone with their thoughts, not that they would admit it). When they finally fell asleep, it was with their minds on fond memories of home, and while the sleep wasn’t particularly restful, it was welcome.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2  
Vex awoke first, to the sounds of faint voices outside the door. It took a few moments after glancing at the digital clock on the bedside table for her thoughts to be lucid enough to guess that hushed voices outside their room at six could well be a bad sign, but those moments were enough for the voices to stop, and for her to hear the sound of a key sliding into the lock of their door. She pushed back the quilt, reached across the gap between their beds and shook her brother, first gently and then more vigorously. By the time his face had gone from annoyed to concerned, the handle was rattling and the voices were back, louder this time, and more irritated. The pair, grateful for their decision not to unpack or undress, were already on their feet, bags slung over one shoulder when the people, or person, possibly, first kicked the door. Panc took over. The twins turned to look toward the sound, and saw how the impact had left a visible indent in the thin wood of the door. Neither sibling moved before the door shook again, leaving enough of a gap for the pair to see the heel of a boot pull away, and swiftly be replaced by a hand, widening the gap. It was Vax that acted first, as it always was. He grabbed hold of his sister’s arm, and pulled her towards the window. His hands almost weren’t steady enough to undo the simple latch, but he managed, pushing it open as far as it would go. The voices coming from behind the door were louder now, but neither twin was paying enough attention to bother noticing what they were saying. Vax, thankful that they were on the ground floor of the building, bent down and climbed through, glancing around as he stepped away from the window, giving Vex enough room to clamber out herself.  
The parking lot that they’d climbed out into was mostly empty, and still only dimly lit in the glow of the street lights and the pre-dawn sky.   
“Which way do we go?” He asked, looking over his shoulder as his sister hurried to meet him.  
“Uhh, that way?” she replied pointing to the left of the exit to the lot. “Worry about where later, let’s just go”  
If the pair had stuck around near the window that they’d climbed out of, they would have heard the exclamations and curses that the people that had entered let out, but they weren’t, so they didn’t.   
The pair ran as far as they could before they needed to stop, making sure to keep their hoods pulled up and their heads down.

When they did stop, it was on a park bench beneath a wide tree. Both twins had had some idea of climbing the tree, when they were approaching it, but the sight of the bench was far too tempting for their weary bodies.  
“Sister dear?” Vax asked, after a few moments had passed  
“Yes?”  
“Can we maybe try to leave through the door of the next building we sleep in? I’m afraid this is becoming a pattern.”  
“That sounds wonderful.” She said leaning back against the bench, despite it being relatively uncomfortable.  
“Fuck. Do we have time to get something to eat? I feel like I haven’t eaten in days”  
“I think I’d kill for a coffee.”   
“Did we pass anywhere open on the way in?”  
“Not that I saw. We’ve got the money for it though. We’ve got enough after setting aside bus tickets for at least a few days food, especially if I manage to get the price down like I did last night.”   
Vax started to reply, but stopped as his sister sat upright again.  
“Shit. It was probably the receptionist last night. He probably told the people who showed up this morning. Fuck, no wonder he was so easy to haggle with. Probably thought he’d make up for it with whatever they paid him.”  
“Are you sure they weren’t embassy people?”  
“I doubt it. I mean fathers people may be almost exclusively assholes, but they're not incompetent. The people earlier didn’t even have anyone watching the ground floor window.”  
“If not, then who? Those racists father was yelling at some city official about a while back, about the human police force not doing enough to protect elves that lived here?”  
“Yeah I remember hearing about that. It could be. Fuck.”   
“...Do you think that’s why mother never cut our hair short? And whenever it did need cutting she did it herself?”  
“I don’t know. Maybe. I’m too tired and hungry to have this conversation right now. Let’s ask her in person when we get there. Right now we should get to the bus station. And maybe pick up some food.”  
“Sounds good. Let’s keep our heads down though, alright?”  
“Actually I thought I’d introduce us using father’s name and position to everyone we come across. Turn my head to make sure they get a good look at the ears as well.”  
“Sure, whatever you say sister” Vax said, sighing “Let’s just go get food.”

 

The pair made their way to the station with relative haste, only stopping once to buy drinks at an startlingly empty starbucks along the way. When they got there, the station was sparsely crowded, with only a dozen other travellers milling about or queuing. Vax leant against a wall drinking his coffee while he watched his sister sweet talk the man behind the counter. Vex turned and walked back towards him after a minute or so  
“So, there’s nothing passing through Broyden for at least another couple of hours, but there is a bus in 15 minutes that’ll take us somewhere that can get us there, so I bought tickets for that. It’s a longer trip, but I don’t really want to be in this city any more, and anyway it’ll probably get us there sooner anyway.” She said as she reached him  
“Sounds good. Let’s grab something else to eat before we get on though.”

They made it onto the bus without issue, walking about halfway down before taking their seats, Vex at the window, and Vax next to her. The view outside wasn’t anything special, but as the pair watched the buildings become taller and less dense, before they pulled out onto the highway, the pair were comforted. The building in which they’d lived in the 6 miserable years since they’d left their mother was far behind them, and it didn’t seem like anyone was coming after them. Both twins fell asleep, their thoughts once again turning to home.

When Vex woke, the bus was still. Despite the tug of sleep on her eyelids, she forced them open, taking a moment to scan around her surroundings, before remembering what the situation was that she had fallen asleep into earlier. She noticed, and quickly recognised, the familiar weight on her shoulder of her brothers sleeping head. They had arrived at the city that they were changing at on time, and after a brief wait, were on the bus that would pass through Byroden.   
She glanced out the window, taking in the sight of the backed up traffic heading into a city. One sign, just on the edge of her vision told her that they hadn’t overslept their stop, and that soon (or soonish, if the traffic stayed bad) they would arrive. When the coach began to crawl forward again a few moments later, a reflection of bright red hair, not quite covering slightly pointed ears, caught her eye further down the aisle. Vex had spent most of the past 6 years solely in the company of elves, with the exception of her brother, and many of them around her age had gone to great lengths to point out every way in which her and her twin weren’t like them, and it was because of this that she thought with some degree of confidence, that this wasn’t a pure blooded elf. Trying not to disturb her brother, (who was snoring quietly) Vex pressed her head against the window, trying to get a better look. It took her a few seconds of blinking to make sure that her eyes weren’t deceiving her, but with nothing changing she realised either she was hallucinating, or this half elf had antlers sprouting from their head. She strained her neck to see if she could get a better angle, but couldn’t see anything else. Although she was slightly frustrated at not being able to indulge her curiosity, Vex leaned back against the seat and, suppressing a yawn, shut her eyes.

Her peace was disturbed about half an hour later, just as they were entering the city, when the driver pushed a little too hard on the brake, sending her brothers head off her shoulder, and abruptly waking him up. Vax threw out an arm to stop his head hitting the seat in front, and yawned, eyelids fluttering.  
“God, you’re finally awake. I’ve needed to piss for ages” Vex said, sighing dramatically  
“Aw sister, that was so generous of you to let me sleep, I didn’t know you cared” Vax replied, grinning  
“Only cause I knew how much you’d moan if I woke you up. You didn’t happen to see a redhead with antlers get on the bus, did you?”  
“No? Sister are you sure you’re not imagining things? Where are they?”  
“Near the front of the bus. And no I’m not imagining them.”  
Vax leant out into the aisle, and looked for a few seconds.  
“Sorry, I don’t see anything. Where are we anyway?”  
“You’re useless, and we’ve got another few hours before we get into Byroden. Now would you please get out of the way?”  
Her brother obliged, and she squeezed past him out into the aisle, steadying herself on a seat as the bus started moving again. Vex did her best to peak over the seat where the antlered redhead had been sitting, but either they’d moved, or as it turned out, had sunk down in their seat, and had placed in their lap what seemed to be some kind of headdress, from which a pair of antlers sprouted. The girl in question was looking up at the man that was sitting next to her, and judging from the expression on her face, was making her distinctly uncomfortable. The man in question, even from the back, was clearly an elf (she would have guessed even if she had missed the pointed ears, just from the way that he held himself). His hair was long and black, although it reminded her more of her father then her brother in the way it hung down his back and round his shoulders. Vex stopped as she saw this, although what she was actually going to do hadn’t yet come to her.   
Before she had the chance to work it out, he turned around, fixing her with a pair of gleaming yellow eyes.  
The hairs on the back of Vex's neck stood on end, and an uncomfortable feeling began creeping into her head. Whatever it was, it was deeply unpleasant, so as it pushed deeper, she pushed back, forcing the whatever the intrusion was out of her mind. As soon as it was gone, she took a step backwards. The man followed, standing up, at least a foot taller than she was. His head was tilted slightly to one side, and the look in his eyes was one that Vex immediately associated with the way a butcher might look at a particularly good cut of meat, or a cat might look at a mouse before it killed it. Something close to anger filled her then, although with it came the sense that she knew this person from somewhere. She straightened, meeting his vivid eyes, and setting her jaw. The smile that had been playing on the edges of his lips curled further upward.  
“And who, pray tell, are you?”   
His voice was as unpleasant as his smile, and part of Vex very much wanted to run back down the aisle to where her brother sat, but she had had more than enough of people looking at her like she could be dismissed when she’d lived at the embassy, so instead, she took a gamble.  
“My name is Vex’ahlia Vessar, and I’m running an errand for my father.” Something that she hoped was recognition flashed across his face as she pushed down the sick feeling that rose in her throat. “Who are you, for that matter?”  
The man blinked once, staring at her with an almost increased intensity, before replying  
“I do apologise, my name is Saundor. Will you tell me why it was you were planning on interrupting me?”   
Vex suppressed another shudder. His voice had a distinctly unpleasant quality, and even though she had been around him for hardly more than a few seconds, she had the clear impression that he was not only a profoundly disagreeable person, but also someone she didn’t want to get on the wrong side of.   
She was so caught up in her dislike of the man, that she almost didn’t recognise the name. Then it clicked where she remembered him from, which was a hazy memory at best and at worst just incorrect. With this came something analogous to a plan, and maybe, possibly a back up.  
“Like I said, business for my father. Someone had contacted him about a half elf walking the streets with a pair of antlers, and causing quite the commotion. I was told to find out who they were, and what they were doing.”  
“Oh really? I wasn’t aware the ambassador had such faith in his bastard children. That is who you are isn’t it?”   
She tried to keep her features still, but the couldn’t suppress a shudder at his words.  
“I thought I recalled the name from somewhere” He said, a smile once again creeping across his face “Why don’t you tell me why you’re really here, and I won’t phone back and tell your father where his miscreant daughter is. Your brothers probably around as well, isn’t he?”  
Well, she thought, the backup it is.  
“Maybe he is, but I don’t think that matters very much. You’re not going to phone back to the embassy, or even mention that you saw me to anyone from Syngorn, because you’re in trouble with them. Nothing official, of course, that would be far too much scandal at such a precarious time, but they want to talk to you. Whispers of corruption, and more were common, back at the embassy.”  
To Vex’s great discomfort, the smile on his face grew wider still.  
“Oh you’re very clever, aren’t you? I’d thought this day was going to be wasted, what with her majesty behind us being so very dull, but you’re much more interesting, and prettier too”  
He’d stepped closer as he spoke, one hand twitching slightly at his side, the other reaching up towards her face. Vex moved backward until she nudged the arm of the man sitting across the aisle from the pair. She glanced back towards him, half wondered if he would try to intervene, but oddly enough he took his arm of the armrest and looked up. She only saw his face and more importantly his eyes for a moment before he turned back to typing on the laptop in front of him, but in that second, she saw the way they’d glazed over, not seeming to comprehend what was inches away from him.  
Facing Saundor again, the hand he had raised to her face was uncomfortably close still, but stopped just short of touching her. The same smile and gaze from earlier was clear on his face, and his tongue flashed across his lips.  
Then, abruptly, his hand dropped.  
“I’ll see you again, Vex ahlia. I hope you enjoy your destination.”   
His voice’s playful edge seemed to be more pronounced, and Vex again suppressed a shiver.  
He stepped away from her and then back down the aisle towards the front of the bus.  
She heard a second set of footsteps, glancing back to see her brother approaching her. As she turned to face the front again, she saw that the redhead had moved over to watch the man walk back to his seat. He didn’t get that far. Instead, when he was only a few seats away from the front, he paused mid stride, flicked the fingers of his right hand, and stepped through the shimmering doorway that appeared in front of him, vanishing from the bus.  
With her brother standing behind her, and the redhead looking over the seat to her right, they watched the doorway flicker for half a second, before shutting. 

Vex let out a breath she didn’t realise she had been holding, and waited for the rest of the passengers on the bus to shout, or scream, or react in anyway at all other than totally ignoring what had occurred around them.  
It never happened. The quiet chatter, the radio playing some gaudy country song, the parent scolding their children near the front. The background noise continued seamlessly  
“You two saw that happen, right?” It was her brother who broke the silence, speaking quietly.  
“Yep. Definitely.” Vex replied, turning round to face him.  
“You good?”   
“Yeah. Still need to piss” She said, smiling weakly.   
He rolled his eyes, and looked at the girl who had backed up into her seat, her eyes flicking between the twins in a way that reminded Vex very much of deer she’d seen in nature documentaries. The thought made her laugh slightly, which only seemed to alarm the girl more. It took her a moment, but she straightened her face, and stuck a hand out towards her.  
“Hi, I’m Vex. Not entirely sure what just happened, but he seemed pretty unpleasant.” She did her best to put what she hoped was friendly smile on her face. “We’re not actually looking for by the way, I just needed an excuse.”  
Vex’s hand hung in the air only a moment longer then was comfortable before the redhead seemed to understand what she meant by it, and grasping it enthusiastically, with more strength then she would have guessed the girl was capable of.  
“I’m Keyleth.” She said brightly, seemingly having overcome her earlier trepidation.   
“Thanks for talking to him, I told him to leave, but um, he kinda just ignored me and then I felt like it would have been rude to say it again, and he was mostly saying nice things I think, although they sounded kinda horrible anyway, but I thought maybe I was just misreading it, but then you showed up and you sounded so confident and smart and you’re both really pretty as well and then he left but he vanished? But nobody else seemed to notice, maybe because of some memory modification or something and I don’t think people using magic in the open is that common here, but i don’t really have a great reference point.” She paused for breath, before a look of intense guilt passed over her face. “Oh I’m so sorry, I was rambling wasn’t I?”  
Vex, who hadn’t ever seen someone pass through such a wide spectrum of human emotion in such a short time, had a bemused expression on her face, although the obvious sincerity in Keyleth’s speech was somewhat comforting.   
“Maybe a little bit” Vax replied. His sister knew without looking that his expression would be ever so slightly glazed over, which it often was when he had just woken up, or when Vex was doing maths in front of him.  
“It’s been ever so nice to make your acquaintance Keyleth, but I really do need to go.” With that Vex turned and walked down the corridor.

She wasn’t gone long, but when she got back, the pair had evidently decided to sit together, and her brother had moved back their bags into an empty pair of seats behind Keyleth. She slid in next to her brother, as he listened, still somewhat bemused, to the girl talk. The group made small talk for around an hour, long enough for them to leave behind the city and at least some of their nervousness from the previous encounter, which eventually led them onto the topic of destinations.  
“... So yeah I don’t really know where I’m headed right now, just traveling for my, um, the sake of it really. What about you two, where are you going?”  
Again, it was slightly comforting to Vex that the girl was such a bad liar, and was so clearly hiding something. Anyone that was so blatant about it probably couldn’t hide anything harmful all that well, so she decided to be honest.  
“We’re heading to Byroden, to stay with family. We should be there in a few hours time if we’re not delayed any further.”  
“Oh, did you not hear the announcement?” Keyleth said, her brow creasing slightly. “The driver said that we’re going to be detouring around there”  
“What? Did they say why?” Her brother asked, shooting Vex a concerned look.  
“I think they mentioned something about all the roads into the town being closed. Yeah, um, they said it was because of an accident or something further in. I wasn’t really paying attention to any of it at the time.”  
“Shit. We must have slept through that. Why would all the roads into a place be closed? What should we do?” Vex said.  
“I don’t know. Did they mention anything else about where the bus is going to be stopping?”   
“Um they said the route was going to unchanged other than that one detour, and that if that was your destination, then you could get off at the stop before, and that they’d have more information for you. I think anyway. Sorry.”  
“It’s fine dear.” Vex said, somewhat distractedly. “Well, looks like we’re leaving sooner than we thought.”  
They continued to talk afterward, but Keyleth eventually noticed that the pair weren’t interested in talking anymore, and went back to staring out the window, and writing in a battered looking notebook.   
The twins were both consumed with worry, neither of them being able to come up with a comforting reason why a town would be so inaccessible, and both wondering where they would find their mother if not at their old home. Both siblings thoroughly avoided certain trains of thought, not prepared to deal with where it would leave them.  
They left the bus a few hours later, exchanging somewhat awkward goodbyes with Keyleth, who seemed sad to see them go. The station that they arrived at was fairly bleak, with peeling grey paint covering the walls, and some small amount of rain beginning to start. Despite having been sitting for the best part of two days, their bags felt heavier, and they were very weary as they entered the building through the automatic doors. There wasn’t much inside. A few rows of uncomfortable looking metal seats filled at least half the floor space, with the rest of it marked off for people to queue in, not that there were many people doing that now. The left hand wall had a pair of vending machines, one with a sign taped to it that Vax assumed was to signify that it was out of order. Next to them was a rack of leaflets for tourist destinations in the area, which was easily the most colourful part of the room, and next to that, was a help desk, staffed by a bored looking man, reading a ratty looking paperback.  
They approached together, both reluctant to start a conversation that could give answers they didn’t want.  
“Excuse me, we were told to stop here. We’re meant to be traveling to byroden. Can you tell us what’s happening?” Vax’s voice kept steady as she spoke, but only just.  
“Sorry, I would if I could, but they haven’t told us anything, just that circumstances on the roads in aren't safe, that all the roads are blocked, and that the standard refund policy applies”  
“What do you mean they haven’t told you anything? How can they shut off that many roads and not tell you anything?” Vex voice was louder, and the man behind the counter set his book down.   
“Look, I don’t have anything to tell you. I can give you a partial refund on your ticket, but that’s pretty much all I can do for you. Do you want it?”  
“No. Keep it.” Vex replied the venom evident in her tone. She turned on one heel, and walked away from him, and out of the building, her brother following after.   
She walked left out the building  
“Shit. I sounded like father back there. We might need that money as well. God I fucked that up.”  
Vax was silent a moment, before sliding down to sit against the wall next to her. “What are we going to do? If we can’t find her, if something… happened to her. We can’t go back to him. I don’t know what we’re going to do.”  
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.We won’t have to find out. We’re going to find her. This is going to work out. We’ll get into Byroden, and we’ll get to the house, to home and she’ll be inside. And it’s gonna be so good to see her again. So fucking good.” Vex knew there was a degree of desperation in her voice and probably tears as well, but only her brother was around to see it, and part of her wanted to smile at the thoughts of their mother.  
“She’ll make those comments she always used to about how much we’ve grown. She’ll start crying.” A matching grin was beginning to grow on his face. He leant against his sister as she sat down next to him.  
“You’ll start crying. All of us will be. She’ll be wearing the necklace we got her for her birthday. She’ll put some cocoa on the stove. And she’ll complain about how messy your hair is, cause I was never good at braiding it.”  
“It’ll be just like when we came back after that summer we spent with gran, before she died. She’ll tell us all about what she’s been doing, and what the gossip has been since we left.” Vax was rubbing at his eyes slightly every so often.  
“We’ll all fall asleep on her bed, cause it’s the best place to sit. And we’ll wake up at dawn when the old man starts shouting at stuff in his yard. It’ll be just like it used to be.”  
“Yeah. It’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.”


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3  
After some fairly brief searching on the map at the bus station, the pair had found a route into the right area of Byroden, which would take them there for about 9, earlier, if they saw someone they were willing to risk hitching a ride with. As tired as they were, they saw no option but to leave now, and try to get in. They knew that it was far too early to sleep, and they wouldn’t be able to stay and wait for a more reasonable time, and that even if they did want to spend money on a motel room, they were far from likely to be able to fall asleep at all.  
They pulled the umbrella that they’d packed in Vax’s bag, and opened it up, and began the walk to their destination, side by side. It was mostly next to roads, which wasn’t pleasant, and the wind blowing behind them combined with the rain meant they were thoroughly soaked before too long, but it was only just midday, and they made it out of the town they’d stopped fairly quickly, stopping once to buy lunch at a gas station. They left it behind as the news played on a tv mounted on a wall, eating as they walked.  
As it often was, it was Vex that saw it first.  
In the distance ahead of them, in the direction of Byroden, a plume of smoke was rising.  
She stopped in her tracks, her brother getting briefly rained on as he stepped out of the umbrellas cover. One look at his sister’s face, and he spun around, scanning the horizon until he saw what she’d seen.   
It was dark in colour, but he’d almost missed it against the thick clouds, billowing steadily upwards in thick columns into the sky.  
Vax’s hand found her’s on the umbrella’s handle. He turned to his sister, and she turned to him, and they both knew that they would keep going forward, not matter what stood in their way.

It took most of the rest of the day for the pair to get to the final stretch of road into Byroden, and the light was beginning to die, increasingly obscured by the thick smoke and clouds.  
They stowed the umbrella, giving up staying dry as a lost cause, and quickened their pace.   
At first Vax thought that it must have been because of the low light, and their dark clothing that the two people manning the roadblock didn’t see the twins before Vax saw them, but as he paid further attention, he could see that both were looking towards Byroden. A moment later, they heard them as well; the laughter coming from them that made Vex notice them as well.  
Vax grabbed his sister’s hand, pulling her abruptly to a stop. They backed up together, as Vex quickly saw what was in front of them. They stepped off the road, into the dense trees that lined it. The forest was almost pitch black, but the pairs eyesight was good enough to make each other out with some degree of clarity.  
“Shit.” Vex’s voice was quiet. “How are we getting past them? I doubt they’ll let us through, even if we ask nicely.”  
“Did you see if the tree line is as thick as it is here further on? I think they were all human, so they probably won’t be able to see us if we stick to the shadows, I’m pretty sure they didn’t have anything that looked like night vision goggles.”  
“Genius. They’ll never suspect us to walk ten steps to the left of them. And while I don’t know if they have night vision goggles, although I don’t think I would really know what they look like outside of a movie, they definitely were carrying guns. Who knows what they might do if they see us trying to sneak past.”  
“What do we do then?” He said, quieter. “We can’t go back now.”  
“Yeah. Maybe she already left? I mean they’ve got to be evacuating if they’re stopping people going in, and we could see the smoke from miles away.”  
“Who are ‘they’ though? Are they just military? This whole thing seems kind of weird.”  
“Who else could they be? I mean I don’t think anyone else could block off all the entrances to a town.”   
“I don’t know. Doesn’t it seem weird that the guy at the bus station hadn’t heard anything?”  
“I mean I guess it’s still pretty recent. And he wasn’t exactly in a very important position.”  
“He still knew enough to offer a refund. And the you’d think, that.” He paused slightly, taking in a breath. “That would make it onto the news, but I didn’t see anything on it back at the gas station.”  
“We should have found out what’s happening. Fuck.”   
Whatever Vax’s response would have been, it was cut off when the distant sound of a car made him shut his mouth, and had both twins crouching low to the ground.  
They waited a moment as it passed them by, before they heard it pull to a stop and, someone shout something they couldn’t make out. Glancing briefly at each other, they nodded and staying low, they crept closer to the roadblock and the road itself, where they could hear voices talking. They got as near to the edge of the tree line as they could while still keeping to the shadows.   
On the road in front of them, sat a black SUV, it’s engine still running. One of it’s doors was open, and in front of it a man in what looked like a military uniform stood. His back was to them, so they couldn’t see his face, but guessing from his posture, and the tone of his voice, Vex assumed he wasn’t pleased with the situation he was looking at. She could make just make out the face of the guard closest to them, and his expression clearly told that whoever had just arrived, he wasn’t happy to see them either. The two soldiers standing out on the road were standing to attention, as the third person seemed to look them up and down, before speaking.  
“Where on earth are the rest of you? They left the temporary camp over an hour ago, why aren't they back yet?” His voice was deep, not gravely, but close to it. Both of the soldiers glanced at each other, the unease that had been on their face’s earlier quickly turning into a quite obvious displeasure.  
“Captain, Sir, the others, uh, they stated that they were going to get something for us to eat sir. We’ve been on this shift for a long time, and we were supposed to be on leave when we were called in Sir.”  
The twins looked at each other, knowing the other was thinking the same thing, that they wouldn’t get a better chance to get past. They both started as the ‘captain’ began to shout at the guards, but began to move again, back further into the tree line, and then forward, past the roadblock. Vex glanced backwards as they did so, and caught a glimpse of the stern, dark face of the captain, and the silver and blue crest that emblazoned his breast, that looked almost like a horse’s head.

They went as quickly as they could, while still making as little sound as possible, flinching at every sound they made, and hoping they were lucky enough to pass unnoticed. Shortly after they passed the roadblock, and they rejoined the road, they began to see cars.   
It wasn’t gradual. The first car had been old, or at rather, still was old, but wasn’t really a car any longer. It had been turned into a burnt out husk, it’s tyres melted into the road, nearly all of it’s paint stripped away, leaving only spots of red on the bumper. What they could see of the interior was a jagged frame of seats, supporting something by the steering wheel that neither could look at for more than a few seconds, before moving quickly on. The line of cars behind this one stretched out, not always constant, but it continued all the way into town. They didn’t look to closely at them, and were glad that the smell that filled the air was that of burnt rubber, and not of anything else. After five minutes of careful progress towards Byroden, the voices long behind them, the smoke was considerably thicker in the sky, and a fine layer of ash could be seen on the road . Ahead of them they could now see what was left of the town they had grown up in. Whatever fire that must have been causing the smoke had mostly stopped by the time the twins were close enough to see it, at least in the area they were, aside from a few smaller, more contained blazes, although whether this was because of the rain that still fell over the town, or that everything that there had been to burn was already gone wasn’t clear.  
Although they both were shocked at how complete the destruction was, they did not stop, and whether the tears running down their cheeks were from the smoke or from anything else, they didn’t mention it. They reached the first building on the right. It had collapsed partially, almost looking intact from the side they approached from, but once they could see the front and interior, it was clear that that wall was the only surviving structure there. The rubble was a blackened mix of tiles, brick, and ash. They watched it a moment, looking for any signs of movement, or life, but there were none that they could see. They turned and kept walking down the street, the burnt out wrecks of cars continuing into the city.

They stopped looking for movement at most of the wrecked houses after a while, although they both listened intently, turning at every shift in the bricks, at every wall that finally gave out, at every fragment that was dislodged by the wind, hoping to see more movement, or hear a voice, or someone else alive in the town.  
It took them a while to orient themselves, with there being very few recognisable landmarks, and most of the road signs they passed were either covered in soot or unreadable, or simply not a street that they remembered, the directions that they’d found being next to useless without any reference points. 

The sense of dread that both twins felt only grew as they walked closer to the neighborhood that they had grown up in. The devastation that surrounded them seemed all the more acute when they could compare it to their memories of how it had once been. They walked passed the school that they had gone to for most of their time in byroden, its structure almost completely ruined, reduced to little more than rubble framed by the buildings pipes, which still stood, almost skeletal. They knew that it was only a few minutes walk from the school to home, and they were torn as to whether they should slow down or speed up.

The final road they took was the hardest. Afterward, if asked, neither of them would have been able to say if it took two minutes or two hours. It was mostly intact, with more than a few of the cars that lined the road being virtually untouched, one even that they recognised, and only a couple of the houses damaged beyond the point that they could be recognised as houses, rather than varied piles of wreckage. The turn off was on the left side, and it took so much for neither of them to stop, to refuse to continue, to leave it unknown, where the possibility of things being okay was still there. They turned the corner all the same, looking down the street that held the house that held the happiest memories of their lives. 

Their home was most of the way down the left side of the street, and it was still mostly standing. The same could not be said for either of the houses that had been next to it, where people they had known for most of their childhood had once lived. Smoke still drifted out of the top right window of their home, and they broke into a run, tapping into a reserve of energy that they didn’t know they still had. They stopped again once they stood outside of their home, and glanced at each other.  
“She might not live here anymore. It would make sense for her to move somewhere smaller once we…” Vex trailed off. She knew as well as her brother did that they would go inside if they could, that they wouldn’t be able to leave without knowing. Vax took her hand, and together they walked onto the sidewalk, and up to the front door.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4  
The door didn’t seem to have been painted since they left, the light blue colour that it must have once had already faded when they moved in, and was now beginning to peel. Vex reached up and turned the door handle, and wasn’t really surprised that it was locked. Vax bent down, and tipped the pot that sat beside the door with his foot and took out the familiar key that had been beneath it. It slid into the lock without any resistance, and turned smoothly. Neither of them acknowledged what this almost certainly meant, other than with a brief glance between them. He pushed open the door, taking the lead and walking inside.

The hallway was an unpleasant mix of exactly the same as it had been when they left, only smaller, emptier, and slightly charred. The drawing that Vax had made for their mother's birthday still hung to the left of the door, both twins messily written names still almost legible at the bottom, but the paint that covered the wall it was on had blackened near the top, causing it to flake and fall to cover the carpeted floor. They listened for a moment, but heard nothing but the creaking of the house.  
“We shouldn’t stay long. We don’t know how stable this place is.” Vex’s voice only just broke the quiet.  
Her brother didn’t respond. She followed his gaze to wear it rested on the pair of tattered pumps that sat in the space they’d both kicked off their shoes in everyday after school.  
A few seconds later, they moved forward down the hallway, towards the stairs, and the door to the dining room and kitchen. It was wide open, and neither gave the small room more than a cursory glance before deciding that there was no one there. It was by far the coldest room in the house, and they had all avoided it whenever possible, in favour of the slightly warmer upstairs. 

The moved tentatively up to the second floor, Vax lightly testing each step before he put his weight on it, his sister keeping a tight grip on his hand. At the top of the stairs was the door to the tiny room that they had shared. It must have been where the fire started, or at least was worst, because through the open door they could see rubble covering the floor, and a mess of debris that Vex guessed had once been the bunk bed that they’d slept on, as well as tiles that had fallen through. The room was open to the sky now, the majority of the roof having given way. Vax glanced up at the ceiling of the landing that they now stood on, looking past the charred walls and noting how it sagged in places, and where cracks were already beginning to form. He tugged at his sister’s hand, pulling her alongside the bannisters, along the hall to the door to their mothers room, still stepping cautiously. 

When they reached the door, Vax paused with his hand just above the door handle. The noise of shifting rubble, of the rain hitting the roof and leaking through into the house, and the creek of their footsteps on the unsteady floor were the only sounds they could hear. He placed his hand upon it, and turned it. It was much stiffer then he remembered, and the latch moved incredibly slowly, scraping against the place where it rested. He set his shoulder to the door, and with a final push, he opened the door, and let it swing toward the wall.

They both saw the body almost immediately. The fire that they had seen from the street outside was almost out, still smouldering in the place that the small bookshelf had once stood, to the left of what was left of the bed, the mattress itself barely more than springs. The dresser that had once been on the right side was almost completely gone, along with nearly everything that had been inside.

Their mother lay on the floor, between the bed and the window, facedown. Together, they ran into the room, dropping to their knees in front of the body. Vax grabbed hold of the bodies shoulder, and pulled it onto it’s back, where it lay rigidly.Their mother’s face had lost all colour, and her eyes were open and staring. She had been lying across her left arm, her hand still gripping a photo frame. 

Vex let out a sob, turning away as she felt vomit rise in her throat. Tears were streaming down Vax’s face, his shoulders shaking. Vex went onto her hands and knees retched onto the floor behind them. She leaned back onto her knees once her stomach was empty, her hands clenching fists in the fabric of her jeans. 

The twins turned to each other at almost the same time a moment later. Vax reached out his arms for his sister, and she turned back towards him, falling into his embrace, with her brother falling against her as well. They both were crying as they held each other, both racked by deep sobs. 

When they finally broke apart, neither could have said how long it had been. The tears they had shed had run dry, leaving streaks down both of their faces. Vex, with a shaking hand picked up the white frame that their mother still clutched, removing it as gently as she could without disturbing her. They’d both already guessed what would be inside, but it was another thing to see it. The picture had been taken on the twins tenth birthday, the last one they’d had together before Syldor had arrived to take them away. They’d spent most of the day lounging in bed with mother, opening presents, watching DVD’s on mother’s old laptop, and eating the cake a neighbour had baked for them. At their mother’s next birthday they presented the picture for her in a frame they had saved up for. Vex looked at it for another long moment, before opening up her bag and sliding it inside, nestled between the spare clothing she had packed.  
“What do we do now?” She asked, looking at her brother beside her, her voice hollow.  
“I don’t know. I don’t want to leave her here like this.”  
“I don’t either. I don’t think we should stay here much longer.”  
“Yeah. You’re right. Where are we gonna go?”  
“I don’t know. Away. As far as we can get from here and the embassy. We can figure out the rest when we get there.”  
“Are we going to leave her?”  
Vex paused, without any answer.  
“I don’t think we could bury her” Her brother continued. “I don’t know what else we could do.”  
She pulled him close again, and they held each other.

In the end, they arranged her as peacefully as they could, closed her eyes, and spread the comforter of the bed over her. They glanced around the room for anything that they could take with them, and when they found nothing, they left, shutting the door behind them. They made their way cautiously down the staircase, all though faster than they suspected was sensible. Vex thought to check the kitchen, but decided not to mention it, she knew that neither of them had any desire to linger longer than they had to, and she doubted that there would be anything worth finding. They walked out the door, and Vax turned to lock it. After he’d done so he eyed the key in his hand, and dropped it into his jacket’s pocket. They walked down the street, not looking back, scared that they wouldn’t be able to leave if they did.

 

Their only destination being out of Byroden, they took the same route out that they took in. They payed almost no attention to their surroundings compared to when they came in, and as a result Vex nearly missed the only warning that they got. They had just reached their old school, and they both pointedly tried to ignore the mostly intact building, and all the memories that the grounds and architecture held. Vax did this by looking down at the ground, and Vex did it by looking up.

The sound was distant at first, barely enough for even her keen ears to pick up. It wasn’t a sound that she could place, but couldn’t put the effort into figuring out if it was anything other than some odd piece of wreckage falling to the ground, even though she knew that it didn’t fit.

She glanced behind her when she heard it again, but still couldn’t tell where it was coming from. 

The third time she heard it, she was sure that it was louder than it had been before. She didn’t stop walking, but payed closer attention to it. The interval between the sounds was roughly five seconds, and seemed to be coming from somewhere above them, and to the right, but whatever it was, it seemed to still be obscured by the thick clouds that hung over head. Whatever it was, she didn’t really think it seemed relevant right now. Just strange sound in a shitty ruined town, where their mother had died alone.

It was shortly after she dismissed it, that an entirely different sound made her head, and her brothers, snap round in the direction the school, towards the centre of town.   
The pair had once seen a building being torn down, whilst walking through the centre of a nearby city. The sound they heard was similar to that, but not on the same scale. Whereas that had been demolished piece by piece, this seemed to happen all at once. They stopped moving, stepping closer to each as they watched a small cloud of dust rise from the air far in the distance, past the school building, and then a sound entirely more terrifying. 

The roar seemed to shake the road itself, and the sound of shifting rubble in the distance reached their ears before the sound had even fully ended. The twins were torn between a desire to step closer, to find out what could possibly have made such a noise, and running as fast as they could in the other direction. 

In the end they did neither. They stood exactly where they’d stopped, and stared in the direction that the sound had come from, waiting for what had been making it, and hoping that they were far enough away to escape it notice.

It rose into the air, maybe halfway between them and the town’s centre, and even at that distance, it was huge. Vex guessed if it had been close to them, it would almost certainly have obscured the school in front of them. They both heard the noise that she had ignored earlier, and only now did she recognise it as the wing beats of the creature that had risen above the streets and buildings of Byroden. They watched as it turned in the air, away from the twins, massive wings beating in the air, it’s limbs tucked beneath it, it’s tail moving lazily behind it. It flew for only 30 seconds or so, before dropping back down into the city. The pair watched in silent horror as it left, before they finally gave into instinct, and ran, as far and as fast as they could.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The neon sign wasn’t flickering, but he didn’t imagine that it would take much for it to start.  
They stumbled across the motel almost by chance. The road that they’d left the city on wasn’t the one they’d arrived on, and by the time they’d reached it, both of their phones were dead. The last time they’d checked the time, it had been just past midnight, and Vax guessed that that had been at least an hour ago. The vacancies sign was lit though, and it looked run down enough that it wouldn’t put much a dent in their already meager funds. Vex spoke to the man behind the counter briefly, and if he noticed the way her voice cracked, he didn’t mention it. Vex booked a room for three nights, and then together, they managed to make it down the hall into their room, and after kicking off their shoes, they lay down in the beds. 

In the end, after some sleepless time that neither could quantify, it was Vax that pushed back the covers, and crossed the gap to where his sister lay, not quite crying, but close to it, and lay beside her. She turned away from the wall that she had been staring at, and faced her brother, and they held each other again. 

Sleep, once they eventually found it, was blissfully deep, but not without dreams of home, that were far less pleasant now than they had been days earlier. The day of travel and heartbreak and terror had taken it’s toll, and even the uncomfortable, cramped bed that they shared, or the cold that seeped in past the thin duvet disturbed their rest.

Vax awoke to find the sun streaming into the room through a crack in the curtains. There was no moment of confusion, where he didn’t realise where he was, or what the events of the previous day had been. It took a few seconds for the details to appear, but the weight of the loss, and what it meant for their future, for Vex’s future, felt like it was already pressing down onto him when he awoke. He didn’t move, part out of a desperate need not to wake his sister, to not have to watch her in that much pain, and part out of the knowledge that he couldn’t have brought himself to move if he’d wanted to.

Vex woke up around half an hour later. She opened her eyes for barely a second, before pressing them shut again, and pushing herself deeper into the mattress, trying to hold back the tears. 

It was two hours later, and the clock on the bedside table showed in dim red led that it was just past two. It was Vex that eventually pushed herself up into a sitting position, and glanced blearily around the motel room. She had barely noticed anything about it when they had arrived the night before, and now that she looked, she saw that it was eerily similar to the motel that they had stayed in the night they left the city. Part of her wondered if it was one of the same chain, or if it was just that all shitty motels looked basically the same. She glanced down to where her brother lay next to her.  
“Vax. Are you awake?” Her voice sounded uneven and shaky, even to her own ears.  
She waited a moment, and heard nothing, but she did notice him shift slightly.  
“Vax?”  
She paused another minute, but again, there was no response.  
“Vax, I’m gonna get out of bed. I won’t leave, I just need to do something.”  
Carefully, she extracted herself from the covers, and stepped over her brother, doing her best not to disturb him any further. She went down to the ends of their bed, where their bags had been dropped the night before. She pulled Vax’s over to the foot of her own bed, and opened it up, and then opened up her own bag. 

First she sorted their clothes. They hadn’t expected to have a long journey, and they’d expected it to mostly be via bus, and as a result, the clothes they’d taken, while not impractical, weren’t exactly robust. They had brought a few changes with them, so they had some that were clean of the ash and dirt that they’d accumulated yesterday. They’d also both brought their thick winter coats with them, since the price Vex had seen when they’d been ordered had been significant to say the least. Despite having lived in luxury for 6 years, the idea of leaving something worth that much behind still made her feel unwell. Besides this clothing, they had chargers for their phones, two toothbrushes, a tube of toothpaste, a half full box of sanitary towels, a razor, the picture from home, the spare key that Vax had kept, and their money.

They’d saved it over a period of months, although neither had spent much of their allowances before they’d finalized their plan, so their spending habits hadn’t changed much. It was stored in a few different places, with a little spread in between their wallets, and the rest stashed inside socks at the bottom of their bags, or in the lining of the bag itself, or in the pockets of their coats. What little money that they had had as children, before Syldor, had been fiercely guarded, and a neighbour of theirs had taught them a few tricks to make sure that whatever they had was at least hard to find. They’d spent 50 dollars on their room in the hotel on their way out of the city, and nearly 200 on the room they were in now. 

Their other expenses had been fairly minimal, save for the bus tickets, which had ended up being slightly pricier than Vex had expected. In all, they still had around 1200 dollars to their name. More than many had. More than a lot of people they had known, back in Byroden. Probably more than their mother had ever had saved up at once. She had once walked in on her mother doing their bills, when she and her brother had been home sick. She didn’t remember if it had been her or her brother who had actually been ill, but they’d rarely gone into school on their own. Her mother’s face had been drawn, her brow creased as she stared at the collection of bills in front of her. She’d sat down in the chair next to her, and asked if their was anything that she could do to help. Her mother’s face had changed for a second when she had looked at Vex, all the weight in her eyes gone. But only for a moment. She couldn’t remember what had happened next, although she feels that once she did. There’s a sharp pang in her chest as she realises that only the things that she and her brother remember are left, and that everything that they forget, will be gone forever. It’s only when the tears fall onto her slightly dirty jeans that she realises that she’s started crying again. 

Vax has been lying in the bed, awake for nearly four hours at this point. He’d heard his sister cry briefly a while back, and the urge to go over and comfort her had been almost strong enough for him to get up and do it, but a task of that kind of movement, and everything that would follow after was too daunting, and after that, his mind filled with thoughts about exactly what kind of brother he was if he couldn’t even do that. His head went in circles, and it was mid way through that he heard Vex stand up, walk over, and shake his shoulder gently.  
“Vax?” Her voice was quiet and raw. He didn’t react, keeping as still as he could.  
“Vax, you need to get up. You smell like shit and it’s grossing me out.”  
The joke was weak, and her could tell that her heart wasn’t in it.  
“Come on Vax, please.” He hated that he was responsible for her sounding like that. He rolled over to face her, and pushed himself up into a sitting position on the bed.  
“Hey.” His own voice wasn’t much better, barely above a whisper.  
“I’m really fucking hungry, so I’m gonna go see if there’s a vending machine or something somewhere. You gonna be okay for a bit?”  
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”  
Part of him had wanted to say no, but he knew that Vex at least should eat something.  
“Okay, see you in a minute.”

Vex walked out of the room, stopping to pick up her wallet, and then again at the door, looking back at her brother, only now sitting up in bed. It was hard for her to shut the door behind her, but she did, leaving it unlocked. It took her a few moments to orient herself, and find out which direction it was to the lobby. Her memories of their arrival were minimal to say the least. She walked down the corridor, keeping her head down. She felt paranoid doing it, but everything from soldiers on the road, to her encounter with Saundor, and the people that had broken into their room when they were leaving the city had left her on edge, and she knew that neither she nor her brother could deal with that right now. 

The corridor quickly lead to a reception area. The lobby itself was simple in design, and looked like it hadn’t been changed for at least thirty years. Trying to seem inconspicuous, and not disturb the woman behind the counter staring down at her desk as she walked over to the vending machine that was next to a half full rack of leaflets, and looked it over. 

A few minutes later, and Vex walked back to the room, her pockets stuffed full of a variety of junk, and her mouth filled with chocolate bar, that Vex was sure if she paid too much attention to, would taste at least slightly stale. Once she was inside, she walked back over to Vax, and dumped her haul on the bed in front of her, before sitting down.  
“We’re eating now, okay?” She said, not waiting for a response before she tucked in.

 

In the next few days, neither of the twins strayed far from the room. There were a few more trips down to the lobby for food, and one to the bar next door for something slightly more substantial. They mostly sat near each other, in silence, although occasionally one of them would turn on the tv, and flick it over to a channel that was showing news, to see if their was any word on what had happened. Not that they hadn’t reached their own conclusions based on what they had seen, but the distance from that, to an actual understanding was one they had trouble crossing. The report’s they saw never went into any specific detail, only talking about minutia, like the building regulations that had been ignored that had allowed the fire to spread so quickly, and how shocking it was that it had happened so soon after the event in Port Udar. None of them mentioned the soldiers that had been around the town, or the creature that they had seen flying above it. On the second night, Vax left their room, and showed up around half an hour later with a bottle of something considerably stronger than anything they’d ever had before.

They’d both tried beer that had been left out after an event that the embassy had hosted, and wine a few times at various dinners that Syldor had brought them to. They’d almost spat it out the first time, but they’d gotten used to the sensation to forget the taste and enjoy the light buzz, and a feeling almost like they’d taken a step back from their circumstances, or at least that it didn’t matter quite so much.  
The amber liquid that they drank in the hotel room was different, in that the burning sensation that accompanied it never went away, but the light buzz they felt quickly turned into a heavier blurriness that they welcomed. 

The next morning was deeply unpleasant, and when Vax poured the remains of the bottle out into the toilet, his sister didn’t mention it, despite the relief it had brought. They idly watched T.V for most of the rest of the day, with Vex leaving briefly to buy food only venturing as far as the gas station that was adjacent.

It was mid afternoon when Vax turned off the TV, cutting out the crime drama that they were barely half watching, and turned to look at his sister where she sat on the bed to the right. She didn’t meet his gaze, still staring forward. Vex knew the conversation that he wanted to start, that they needed to have, but she knew that it was another very final step.  
“What are we going to do now?” His voice was low, and barely carried above the sound coming from the room next to theirs.  
Silence hung in the space between them, and neither of them could say how long it was until it broke.  
“I want to leave here. I want to get as far away as we can. From all of it.” Vex spoke first, her voice tired, but with a sliver of the heat that it used to hold.  
“Sounds good. Maybe we head towards Westrun? It’s big enough that no one will find us if we hide well.”  
“Yeah, perfect. They’ll probably be work there as well. Our money’s not going to last very long. We could probably take a greyhound to get there.”  
“Okay. Fuck. Okay.”  
There was a moment of silence before Vex replied. Her brother could see that whatever it was, she was having trouble saying it.  
“The. Thing, that we saw in Byroden, before we ran. It was, oh fucking hell, it was a fucking dragon wasn’t it.” A short bark of laughter followed, but there was very little humour in it. “I mean, you hear things, people talking about the last age, and the things that lived then, but gods…”  
“Yeah. Fuck. … Do you anything stopped it? Is it still out there? It can’t exactly hide can it?”  
“I don’t know. How did no one know? Is it the only one?”  
There was another pause in the conversation. Neither of them could answer the others questions.  
“Fuck. Do you think dad knew they existed?” Vex continued. “I mean, I’m he knew a lot of the high ups back in Syngorn, and they’d know if anyone one did.”  
“Shit. They’d do that wouldn’t they. Sit on something that big and dangerous, just cause it’s easier for them like this. Fuckers.”  
“Do you think that’s what the soldiers outside Byroden were doing? Trying to make sure that no one got close enough to see it?”  
“I don’t know. Maybe. They probably knew about it, at least they will after this. At least whoevers in charge. How could they cover it up though? Surely someone survived to talk about it. It can’t have killed everyone. It can’t have.”  
“Do you think that’s why they were facing toward the town? Not to keep people out but to keep them in?”  
“How would that work? Even if they’d blocked off every road, some people would have gotten out before they set it up, unless they knew that it was coming, but that doesn’t make any fucking sense either. What possible reason could they have for doing that?”  
“Fucking hell.”  
Vax had looked away from her, and his gaze was now fixed ahead of her at the wall. “It’s so fucking fucked. I don’t know if I can do it. Our home is gone, and so is our mother, and what? We’re going to Westrun now, but what for? Why are we bothering?”  
“I don’t know. I’m not sure if I care. It’s just us, we’re all that matter. Who cares about what those soldiers were doing. Or whether father knew or not. Fuck all of them. You’re the only person that matters to me.” Vex crossed the gap, and sat down on the bed in front of her brother, taking his hands in her own, and meeting his tearful gaze. “If we need to go to Westrun to get money, or a place to stay, or anything else that we need, then let’s go there. As long as you’re there with me.”  
Vax pulled his sister in close, and they held each other long enough for both of their tears to stop.  
“As long as we’re together then. I think that we can try that stubby.”  
“Good. Do you want to go down to the diner next door, get some food? I think I’m gonna be sick if I eat anything from that vending machine again.”  
The food they ate could never be described as gourmet, and the meal itself wouldn’t be described as cheerful either, but both Vex and Vax felt something close to hope as they finished their food and went back to their room. That night they both dreamt of home, but woke up to thoughts of what lay before them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who read, I hope you enjoyed it.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a finished fic, I'll probably be uploading it over the next week or so. Feel free to leave any thoughts or feedback in the comments.


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